And to All a Good Night

Traditions died hard among humankind. This is why, even though the ship wasn't even finished and was being manned by the barest of skeleton crew and civilian personnel, there was a pine tree in newly-minted Ten Forward lounge of the not-quite officially commissioned yet USS Enterprise. It had been collecting gifts under it for something called a "Secret Santa" exchange for all 40 of the crew who had forgone traditional winter festivities on the nearby human homeworld to stay up here at the Utopia Planitia shipyards.

Tasha had been meaning to ask the Counselor about it. She hadn't expected to "click" with Deanna nearly as well as she had. Her background tended to interest those in the human psychology field a bit too much, and Deanna's empathic abilities made her admittedly nervous, but Deanna had been nothing but lovely and forthright. She also, thankfully, knew when to pry and when not to.

Since Data had returned from a quick mission, it was her honor to introduce the counselor to the other fast friend she had made so far while stationed here. She was incredibly curious to hear what Deanna's read on him would be. For now though, all of them were in this lounge, off-duty for another 90 minutes, and Troi was explaining what this "Santa" thing entailed.